An adult Egyptian vulture that was captured and fitted with a GPS transmitter in Oman. Adult Egyptian vultures are mostly white from about 4 yreas of age, with black flight feathers. Juveniles are brown, and subaduts are mottled, becoming ever whiter with age. Photo: M. McGrady.

Like so many Old World vultures, the Egyptian vulture is globally endangered. The threats to Egyptian vultures are pretty much the same as those that other Old World vultures face, and include electrocution, changes in food availability, direct and indirect persecution, targeted and inadvertent poisoning, and hunting for the black magic market. Its endangered status and the threats notwithstanding, the Sultanate of Oman is a stronghold for Egyptian vultures, because it apparently has a healthy resident population and is a wintertime destination for a substantial number of migrants from farther north.

Since 2012, International Avian Research (IAR) has been working with the Environment Society of Oman (ESO) conducting research on Egyptian vultures in Oman. That work has included surveys on Masirah Island (which was found to be home to the second densest breeding population in the world), monitoring numbers of vultures at landfills and satellite radiotracking of vultures.

Since 2015, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association (GLAZA) has, through Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, supported the work of IAR. Two vultures were fitted with GPS radiotags in both 2015 and 2016, and two steppe eagles were fitted with tags in 2017—steppe eagles are also endangered; they breed mostly in central Asia, but migrate south (including into Oman) in the winter.

An adult Egyptian vulture fitted with a GPS transmitter and ready for release being held by an Environment Society of Oman staff member. Photo: M. McGrady

In January 2018, with the continuing support of GLAZA and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, along with additional support from the Bernd Meyburg Foundation for Raptor Research and Conservation, IAR and its cooperators were able to capture 13 Egyptian vultures, 12 adults and one 2-year-old, and fit them with GPS tags. Since then, the birds have been doing what vultures do. Most of the vultures have spent their days ranging mostly in northeast Oman in the Hajar mountains and surrounding foothills. They have made regular visits to landfills, roosted in steep wadis in the mountains, and perched on high voltage electricity pylons. One bird has behaved a bit differently and has made at least two laps of the northern part of the country, seemingly always on the move.

Adult Egyptian vulture in Oman in January 2018. The GPS transmitter is fitted as a backpack and can be barely seen. Photo: M. McGrady

What do or will we learn from tracking, and how can this help conserve Egyptian vultures? Well, the tracking of four vultures since 2015 has revealed that in Oman, Egyptian vultures suffer from electrocution and make regular use of landfills for feeding. The data indicate that the vultures may move around in a way so as to keep tabs on the availability of food. This, if you think about it, makes sense for a species that must find food that is not reliably available at all times. The data further suggest that ongoing upgrades to waste management in Oman, reducing the number of dumps from over 300 to 12, may not have negative effects on vultures. Indeed, improved waste management may make food resources safer for vultures and at the same time find benefits for human health, which is really good news. IAR and ESO have also used the information to educate the public, including school children, about vultures and the important ecosystem services they provide as nature’s waste managers.

The data from these newly deployed tags should help the cooperating groups do more. As we try to understand the ecology of the Egyptian vulture in order to conserve them, more data is important to the pursuit of science-based solutions. From a public education standpoint, a complete “story” that includes more individuals over more years, provides a compelling case for conservation. Also, with so many tagged adult birds, at least some are expected to be migrants, so new information on timing and routes of migration should be collected, and the location of breeding areas farther north can be determined. Such information is important in devising effective conservation strategies that span the huge range covered by migratory individuals, and it demonstrates the connectivity between breeding and wintering areas, which are sometimes separated by thousands of kilometers.

Movements of 13 Egyptian vultures caught and fitted with GPS transmitters in Oman in January 2018.

Monitoring the distributions and abundances of birds of prey is “key” to tracking changes in their conservation status. And this, in turn, is key to protecting them.

Indeed, lack of monitoring once-abundant Old World vultures in southern Asia during the height of their diclofenac-induced population declines in the 1980s and 1990s allowed populations of three species of widespread and common vultures to plummet catastrophically by more than 95%, unnoticed by the conservation community. Conservationists were caught by surprise at this greatest global loss of raptor populations in recorded history, necessitating expensive captive-breeding programs, which, unfortunately, some believe may offer “too little, too late” to restore these once-common species to their former status.

It was with this self-inflicted catastrophe in mind that Hawk Mountain Sanctuary embarked an ambitious intercontinental population monitoring scheme stretching from southern Canada to southernmost South America, aimed at tracking both short and long-term shifts in the distributions and abundances of populations of the world’s two most common New World scavenging birds of prey, the black and turkey vulture, along with other less common avian scavengers including caracaras and condors.

The Sanctuary’s effort began in 2004 with eight winter roadside-survey routes in Costa Rica, totaling more than 1200 kilometers. Since then, a series of more than 150 seasonal (both winter and summer) roadside counts have been undertaken across Canada, the United States, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, and the Falkland Islands. In 2017 we began resurveying these routes to assess the extents, if any, to which populations of scavenging birds of have changed over the years. Seven roadside-counts in central Argentina were the first to be redone this July. In late December 2017 I re-ran two of the southernmost surveys in southern Patagonian Chile. The latter two surveys are the focus of this entry.

Road sign indicating the highway goes to the end of the world (Ruta del fin del Mundo).

Although the two survey routes are just beyond the traditional southern distributions of both black and turkey vultures, both are within the distributions of Andean condors, southern crested caracaras, and chimango caracaras. (The routes, themselves, are part of the “Ruta del Fin del Mundo,” or the “Highway at the End of the World,” as the Chileans call it on their road signs.) The goal was to learn if black and turkey vultures, both of which are extending the northern limits of their ranges in North America were doing the same southward in South America. I was on my way to field work in The Falklands, and had scheduled four days to survey scavengers along the two routes I had earlier surveyed in the austral summer of 2010-2011. One route followed the northern shoreline of the Strait of Magellan for 205-kilometers from 40 kilometers south of Punta Arenas, Chile, to Punta Delgada, Chile, close to the border with Argentina. The other stretched 193-kilometers from 40 kilometers north of Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, Chile, near the southern terminus of the Andes. Although the forecast called for rain on three of the four days, I planned to complete my surveys. Thankfully the wet weather held off, and I was able to conduct all four surveys without interruption.

An old store in a ghost town on the shoreline on the Strait of Magellan in Patagonian Chile.

Both routes took me through spectacular treeless Patagonian Steppe, desert-like regions with little vegetation that superficially resemble parts of the arid American West–open areas ideally suited for spotting both perched and flying birds of prey. Although the surveys are just “indexes” of populations of scavenging birds of prey inhabiting approximately half-a-kilometer strips along either side of the roads, they do provide relatively consistent counts of scavenging birds of prey in an area. Indeed the two counts along the first route yielded survey totals of 13 southern crested and 1 chimango caracara, and 13 crested caracaras and 3 chimango caracaras on the 19 and 21 of December 2017, respectively, supporting the validity of the survey technique’s ability to assess regional populations. The second route was more variable with no Andean condors seen on the first count day and 10 seen on the second, but all-in-all, these results and our earlier surveys suggest that populations of the three species seen had changed little across the eight years of the austral-summertime surveys. Whether this will hold for scavenger surveys in other regions remains to be seen.

However, that is only part of the story. Although I did not have time to record other species seen along the routes, I did see a number of other fascinating birds and animals, including handfuls of cinereous harriers and variable hawks, together with rheas, flamingos, black-faced ibises, southern lapwings, and guanacos. One of the most fascinating behavioral aspects of the surveys was that road–killed rabbits and other small mammals that had been hit by traffic the evening before each survey were quickly fed upon by southern crested caracaras early the following morning, with the caracaras unquestionably out-competing kelp and dolphin gulls that tried unsuccessfully to “horn-in” on the action.

The situation reminded me of what I saw several years ago while studying Old World vultures in the Masai Mara of south-western Kenya, where in early-morning, first-in-the-air, ruppells, white-backed, and lappet-faced vultures congregated at and fed upon lion- and hyena-killed prey from the previous evening’s predation events. Although my Patagonian observations occurred only across several days, there was little doubt that a daily feeding pattern existed. The fresh-killed rabbits I spotted from early to mid-morning each day—and that each attracted as many as a dozen or more caracaras—had all but disappeared by late morning, with nothing but bright-red splotches on the concrete roadway offering evidence of what had happened the previous evening, an obvious example the unintended effects of human commuters. Another intriguing behavior was that of Andean condors, several of which were seen in low-flying (<5 meters) flight along the roadsides, something I often associate with carrion-seeking turkey vultures in both North and South America.

These recent surveys convince me that even without black and turkey vultures, road surveys can be both fun and scientifically profitable, and I look forward to conducting them again in another 5 or 10 years.

More roadside scavenger counts are planned for central Argentina in January and in Arizona in February. I will keep you posted on the results.

As a Hawk Mountain Conservation Science Trainee, you have the opportunity to be a part of many influential experiences, including counting migrants as they pass North Lookout and educating visitors about the importance of raptor conservation. But the experience that I have learned the most from this autumn was working with my fellow trainee Zoey Greenberg on our black vulture movement ecology project. This blog is part two of our vulture series so be sure to check out part one to gain a complete understanding of our project.

The plan was to locate three black vultures, Versace, Gifford, and Hillary, based on their recent GPS locations and observe what the birds were doing at these locations. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was excited to get started and gain new field experience, but no one had ever attempted groundtruthing with this species before, and it is still a new concept. We accepted this challenge with enthusiasm but were anxious about getting results. In the end we knew that no data would still be valuable information, however who doesn’t want groundbreaking results from their first ever field study?

Versace perched on a barn in the Kempton Valley, notice her wing tag and antennae of the telemetry unit.

Thankfully, our first day in the field was a success! Zoey and I followed Versace’s movements from the previous month, which led us to a large roost of black and turkey vultures in the Kempton Valley. We were ecstatic, and from that point on, we were on a roll! Throughout the next three months we kept up our tracking efforts and found many more roosts (some permanent and some temporary), observed interesting behaviors, and made an effort to trap and tag these birds. By doing all of this, we were able to confirm some of our suspicions. However, we also discovered things we did not expect.

One of the suspicions we were able to confirm was that black and turkey vultures more often than not share the same roost sites. These two species have very different tendencies when searching for food, feeding, and perching, but that did not stop them from co-existing at the same roosting sites and air space. We also suspected that the vultures would use some roosts more consistently than others depending air temperature, trees available, and proximity to their next meal. We determined what each roost site was being used for, as well as observed a shift in preferred roost locations and species composition as winter set in and turkey vultures began migrating south.

Turkey vulture trapped and tagged in Kempton Valley by Adehl, Zoey, and David Barber.

We found the most unexpected results attempting to trap “our” black vultures. We enlisted the help of Hawk Mountain biologists, David Barber and Jean-François Therrien, who both have extensive trapping and tagging experience with vultures and other raptors. The goal was to capture and wing tag a substantial number of the black vultures we followed around in the Kempton Valley.

To do so, we staked down road kill (a vulture delicacy) at several roost sights we had determined were used mainly for feeding. Once the bait was staked, we placed noose traps made of fishing line and parachute cord in a diamond around the carcass. Once everything was in place, we would wait for the vultures to descend on the meal and consequently get their feet stuck in our traps—a process that does not harm the birds).

That is exactly what we did. We waited… and waited… and waited to no avail. The first site we chose to bait was seemingly perfect. There was already an area on the property where the landowners frequently discarded rotting vegetables and meat scraps. In addition, dead trees and conifers, which provided many roosting options for the birds, surrounded the dump.

However, shortly after we began baiting, two unwelcome visitors decided to join the flock: an adult and immature bald eagle. Now you may be thinking, “Wow! How amazing you get to observe vultures and the majestic bald eagle in one place!” Well, you would be wrong. We learned immediately that vultures and eagles do not enjoy sharing the same air space, or the same dining room table for that matter.

Adehl holds the trapped and newly tagged turkey vulture.

We are confident that this interaction caused us to be unsuccessful in trapping vultures at this trap site, and the second area we chose to bait and trap. As soon as the eagles were seen at the roosting areas, black and turkey vultures were not seen roosting in those locations again during our observations. We did not expect this to occur because in other locations, like the Conowingo Dam in Maryland, eagles and vultures co-exist in the same feeding sites with no apparent issue. We believe the higher tolerance in these areas could be due to a larger food source with enough to go around for everyone, meaning that there is no need to initiate a food fight. The availability of only one carcass at our bait sites and providing large carcasses that were more easily discovered could have been the reason that the vultures and eagles in our study did not get along at our sites. However, all was not lost! In the end we did manage to trap and tag one turkey vulture, which was a very valuable learning experience for Zoey and myself.

Ultimately, I was able to witness unique behavioral patterns through this opportunity that will stick with me the most. I will never forget the breezy autumn morning when over twenty turkey vultures performed aerial acrobatics on a freshly plowed hill between bouts of picking through the soil with their bills and talons. Nor will I forget standing in the pouring rain, watching more than forty black vultures run across the bars of an information tower with their bills clapping and wings spread wide.

Zoey and I learned so much by only taking the time to stop and observe, and we are excited to see what else others that take the time to do the same will discover.

Hawk Mountain has a rich research and monitoring history. For several decades now, on-staff researchers have been carrying the torch, keeping numerous inestimable monitoring projects going. The migration counts conducted at Hawk Mountain indeed represents the longest running raptor monitoring project in the world.

Starting some 80+ years ago, the counts were first designed to assess the usefulness of the protection offered by the newly created Sanctuary. Not long after, Hawk Mountain’s curator Maurice Broun and others realized the invaluable long-term dataset that those counts represent and they could be used to study population trends of 16 North American raptor species. Then in the mid 1950s, Alex Nagy, then Hawk Mountain’s assistant curator, installed a few bird boxes on his farm to see if he could get American kestrels to use them. What most likely started as a humble backyard experiment resulted in what is now the American Kestrel Nest Box Program, which will proudly celebrate its 65th anniversary next spring.

Research and monitoring projects sometimes begin after a carefully designed approach. However, in reality, many such projects simply start serendipitously, as in the previous examples. Traveling around Hawk Mountain to visit the 125 man-made nest boxes of the American Kestrel Nest Box Program during summer 2017, we noticed odd and conspicuous behaviors of bigger, darker birds. Indeed on distinct occasions, black vultures would suddenly appear flying low overhead or even flying out a window from the very barns our kestrel nest boxes are attached to. At that point, we had little doubt; those vultures are likely using the building to nest.

JF holds a newly tagged black vulture named Versace.

From a research point of view, having access to nest sites is highly valuable. In addition to being able to handle adults and chicks to assess their life history traits (body condition, growth rate, disease prevalence, etc.), monitoring nesting activities allows us to assess breeding success and breeding rate, age at first breeding, and nest site fidelity on the population level over time. Those aspects are all immensely important to understand the complete cycle of individuals that compose populations.

Finding this access to several nests for any raptor species is challenging, because individuals are often territorial. Their nests occur at low density and are usually concealed. Therefore, monitoring nesting raptors often becomes an unrealistic task, given the time required and the area that would need to be covered to locate a fair number of them. A good breeding monitoring project requires a relatively easy way to access several nests across a relatively small area to allow researchers to visit them periodically.

Black vulture chick found in a local barn. Photo by J. Dallas.

During summer 2017, our team found just this. We were able to successfully monitor 3 black vulture nests that we found without even searching while checking our kestrel nest boxes. Those birds were using Pennsylvanian barns just like giant man-made nest boxes, and thankfully they were all in a relatively small radius around Hawk Mountain.

This project has just begun, and we are now looking to double or triple the number of monitored nests in the coming years. So if you notice black or Turkey vultures flying out of abandoned buildings or barns, please let us know. We would be thrilled to add new nest locations to our newly-born monitoring program.

Tagged black vulture. Photo by Holly Merker.

By using individual markers (such as wing-tags and telemetry transmitters), we will be following the where and wherefore of those individual birds through their lifetime. Anytime you see a vulture, keep an eye out for wing-tags (a brightly colored tag showing a distinct number). Any sighting of a tagged individual represents important information for locating roost sites, feeding hot spots, survival rates, and dispersal behavior. Help and support these studies by reporting any sightings at this link.

Monitoring programs such as these are an essential part of conservation science: they form the backbone of long-term population assessments. They allow researchers to keep track of historical population size and productivity in order to identify declines in a timely fashion and become aware of problems that otherwise could have gone undetected.

To learn more about our work with North American vultures or any other species of raptors, or if you wish to support our monitoring efforts financially, contact me at therrien@hawkmountain.org.

This March I watched three Johnny Rooks feeding in the beached kelp wrack adjacent to a falling tide, with an endless symphonic bray of gentoo penguins in the background. Early afternoon seemed to be the rooks’ final push, as it were, to fill their tanks before tucking in for a late afternoon nap.

A fresh bird with a fresh band; welcome to the world K28 Yellow.

While the adult and two juveniles raked with resolve, another rook, band K28 Yellow, walked to within three feet of me. Unlike times before though, it wasn’t staring at me. K28 Yellow, whose plumage betrayed it’s youth–a fledgling, perhaps having only left the nest just six weeks prior– approached a piece of dried “basket kelp” tucked between driftwood and beach cabbage. Without hesitation, K28 “kick-boxed” the kelp and, clinging to the fibrous ball, fell and rolled onto its back. I watched, trying not to laugh, as it pecked at, clawed, and rolled around with the basket for five minutes, doing what I could only call playing. The raptor, a close relative of the Peregrine and other falcons, reminded me of a puppy consumed with its chew toy.

While extensively studied in mammals, there are far fewer recognized examples of avian play, particularly in raptors. Among birds it is best documented in corvids (e.g. crows and ravens) and parrots. Raptor examples include object manipulation by a captive-raised goshawk, an observation of a wild marsh hawk playing with its horned lark prey, and aerial acrobatics of bald and imperial eagles.

It’s worth pausing here in light of the genetic revelations of the past decade that place caracaras and falcons next to parrots in the tree of life, rather than alongside hawks and eagles. In fact, when reading about the kea, a parrot found only on New Zealand, you could almost replace their species name with “Johnny Rook” and have it read seamlessly. They, like rooks, are highly social, bold, curious, opportunistic foragers that feed on insects just as readily as seabirds and carcasses. And they play, extensively, with other keas and with inanimate objects. These qualities, along with their approachability, make both them and the Rooks the perfect candidates for studying play in the wild.

This occasion of watching a rook play wasn’t an anomaly. Over the two months I spent on Saunders Island this past austral summer (Feb-March), I watched multiple solitary and social play events across all ages of rooks. One time, another recently fledged bird and an adult played with a sheet of plastic stuck in the sand dunes, again rolling onto their backs as they kicked and pulled. For others, old carcasses, long picked clean became ceremonial tug-of war tools. Given the intensity of local fishing, there were also plenty of cast lines that washed ashore, frayed, half buried, just begging to be played with.

Are the birds learning about their environment, building social bonds, or honing predatory or stress responses? At this point, we don’t know. Fortunately, our long-term banding project allows us to track this behavior in specific individuals, creating an unprecedented opportunity to understand the adaptive significance of this behavior in a raptor in the wild. And let’s be honest, what’s more endearing than watching a predator kick its talons up and play?

Most studies of bird migration focus on the movements of birds that ornithologists refer to as “complete migrants,” species whose global populations evacuate their breeding grounds each year while traveling to geographically distant wintering areas. Although Arctic Terns, Black-and-white Warblers, and Broad-winged Hawks, along with a small percentage of other species of migratory birds, do follow this pattern, most migratory species of birds are “partial migrants,” species whose populations include both sometimes-migratory and non-migratory individuals, and whose migratory populations sometime overwinter in areas already occupied by non-migratory members of the same species. It turns out that partial migration is a lot more complicated than complete migration, and although the former is little studied compared with the latter, its complexity makes it a lot more intriguing, as well as a lot more challenging, both to investigate and to understand.

New World Turkey Vultures are a good example of partial migrants, with some populations consisting entirely of migratory individuals, whereas other populations consist of both migratory and non-migratory individuals, and still other populations consisting entirely of non-migratory individuals. The degree to which different populations of Turkey Vultures interact, and the effects they have on each other is not well known. One place where such interactions have been explored is in the Llanos, the enormous freshwater wetland of central Venezuela, where Turkey Vulture migrants from western North America, which are larger and more massive than the region’s non-migratory, year-round residents, displace the latter from the best available habitats and gain weight after their arrival while the supplanted residents simultaneously lose weight. Indeed, the so-called Llanos “residents” appeared to “migrate reciprocally” to avoid competing with of the larger North American birds.

But what happens in areas in which some breeders migrate south in autumn, whereas other stay put, while still others from more northern breeding sites migrate into the region and over-winter there? Such is the case in the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona, where members of the breeding population include both migrants and non-migrants of the aura race of Turkey Vultures, whereas as the winter-only individuals are migrants from the larger and more massive meridionalis race from farther north. (Note: There are six subspecies of Turkey Vultures, three that breed in North America, along with two that breed in Central America, and three that breed in South America.)

Keith and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Senior Researcher Dr. Jean-Francois Therrien fitting a satellite to one of the norther breeders this January.

We began satellite tracking members of the Sonoran Desert breeding race in 2014 and have followed the movements of nine birds since then. All but one have proved to be migratory, with some individuals overwintering consistently in Mexico, whereas other have overwintered consistently either in Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, or Colombia. In late January of this year my Hawk Mountain colleague, Dr. Jean-Francois Therrien, and I traveled to our tapping site outside of Phoenix and successfully trapped two winter-only individuals of the meridionalis race of Turkey Vultures. Although we don’t know exactly where these two breed, as of early-March one was on Vancouver Island in south western most Canada, and the other was in Death Valley California in late March, with both north of their Arizona trapping site.

Tracking the movement of all of these Sonoran birds for several years will allow us to determine if the northern breeders crowd out the smaller year-round residents from Arizona, and if so, whether or not the smaller southern migrants leave in autumn in advance of the arrival of the larger northern migrants and time their returns to avoid the departing northern migrants in spring.

Although this may seem a bit esoteric to some, understanding the extent to which the two subspecies interact in the Sonoran Desert has important implication for conservation. Suppose, for example, that in Arizona the larger northern breeders consistently dominate the smaller southern breeders. If so, the size of the former’s populations could limit the size of the latter’s, particularly in winter when food may be limiting. If so, the fate of the latter would be affected by the fate of the former. Thus, if global change were to affect the former–either positively or negatively–the latter might “respond” as well, albeit indirectly, in-kind. Although, all of this remains highly speculative, the extent, if any, to which populations of the two races merits examination, and I very much look forward to doing so over the course of the next few years.

I will keep you posted of the arrivals and departures of both our “northern” and “southern” Arizona migrants this summer.

I began my studies of the world Critically Endangered Hooded Vulture in The Gambia in September of 2013, when colleagues and I placed four tracking devices on individuals in the exurbs of Banjul, the capital of that country. Almost immediately thereafter, I thought about investigating their populations in Senegal as well. Senegal, the western most mainland country in Africa is a much larger nation that completely encircles The Gambia–except for the latter’s small Atlantic coastline– and is an ecological transition zone between the humid tropics farther south, and the Saharan desert of Mauritania to the north.

The country-side along our survey routes

This year’s meeting of the Pan African Ornithological Congress in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, gave me the perfect excuse to follow up on this. After attending the Congress and the important Second Pan African Vulture Summit associated with it, my colleagues and I tried to capture several “hoodies” in hopes of placing satellite tracking devices on them. We also conducted three roadside surveys of vultures to learn more about the distribution of Hoodies and other vultures in the country.

Two mornings of trapping attempts at the Dakar Zoo produced no captures, and our attention on Sunday, the 23rd of October turned to leaving Dakar and traveling north to the small city of Louga, where three of us, Drs. Lindy Thompson, Rien Van Wijk, and I, planned to meet with a group of other European and African vulture biologists who also planned to survey vultures populations.

All went quite smoothly until we reached the town of Thies, Senegal, where our low-cost rental car overheated, forcing us wait on the curb for 6 hours for a replacement, which arrived only after darkness fell. Driving at night in Africa is never easy–livestock, pedestrians, aggressive drivers, and potholes, see to that–and it was past midnight when we reached Louga, long after our colleagues had gone to bed.

A Hooded Vulture perched near a nesting of Ruppell’s Vultures

A breakfast meeting the next day resulted in a decision to head southwest to the village of Dars, and then southeast on to the city of Mbaké, slightly more than 200 kilometers away, while surveying vultures en route. Our colleagues would survey other routes. We saw 169 vultures along the way, including 17 hoodies, 47 Ruppell’s Vultures, 71 White-backed Vultures and 34 Gyps vultures that we could not identify to species. The route took us through open habitats not unlike those we survey in South Africa, except for the fact that all of the ungulates we saw on the way were domestic livestock (i.e., sheep, goats and cattle), rather than wild antelopes and other native mammals. We spent the night in a small, and somewhat questionable, hotel on the outskirts of Mbaké, where a small red light over our beds confirmed our suspicions concerning the facility’s hourly rates of stay.

The next day involved following a meandering survey route to the city of Kaolack, which our travel guide referred to as the “armpit of Senegal. ” Unfortunately, Kaolack turned out to be aptly named. Our approach to the city included skirting the edge of a primary sewage treatment facility, which quickly cleared our nasal passages of the dust they had accumulated over the course of the day. Our hotel and the opposite side of town proved to be something of an oasis, even if the highlight of its view-shed was an enormous

A Hooded Vulture perched at the gate to our hotel’s parking lot in Dakar, Senegal

mountain of salt excavated from the adjacent hypersaline estuary. The day’s route included good looks at 46 Hooded Vultures, together with lesser numbers of Ruppell’s, White-backed, and Lappet-faced Vultures, along with several impressive multi-thousand bird flocks of White Storks. Our third and final survey route, which took us back to Dakar, produced an additional 69 Hooded Vultures, a number of which were sighted in Dakar itself, together with smaller numbers of African White-backed and Ruppell’s vultures. Although we were not sure of what to expect, the numbers of hoodies, in particular, were more that I imagined, albeit much less than 10% the density of those we had seen on similar surveys in The Gambia in 2013 and 2015, in more moist wooded habitats, about a hundred kilometers farther south.

Although we collected our data in a traditional fashion using our odometer to indicate the locations of all birds we sighted, we later entered our counts into the newly developed African Raptor Databank (ARDB). The brain child of my good friend Dr. Rob Davies, the ARDB aims to ascertain the conservation status of raptors and their habitats across Africa, and to help build the local expertise needed to monitor these species in the future and implement a sound strategy for their effective safeguarding.

The ARDB will be completed in two phases. The first involves building a database over a period of five years (2013 – 2018). The second involves distribution modelling of each species in relation to the availability of its habitat and production of a conservation atlas for African raptors, online and hard copy. The project which received initial support from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, is managed by habitat INFO, and is currently co-funded by The Peregrine Fund.

Given our initial experiences in Senegal, I plan to return early next year to conduct additional road surveys, as well as trap and affix tracking devices to two or more hoodies.

Importantly participants at the Second Pan African Vulture Summit I attended agreed to foster additional roadside surveys of African Vultures, the majority of which, including Hooded Vultures, are globally threatened or endangered. Hawk Mountain plans to help in this effort every way possible, so that we can better assess vulture abundances and distributions, and, in so doing, formulate practical and effective conservation action plans.